Wed Jan 30, 2013 at 07:00:00 AM EST

Senate

GA-Sen: Rep. Paul Broun's wife apparently blurted out that her husband was running for Senate at a meeting last night. If I'm Tom Price, Lynn Westmoreland, or Karen Handel, I'm thinking about declaring this morning to try to sweep up conservative endorsements before Broun gets his act together.

IA-Sen: The Club For Growth isn't commenting on a potential Steve King Senate bid...but everyone expects them to endorse him if he runs.

KY-Sen: Racing legend Dario Franchitti is divorcing Ashley Judd because he can't stand the Senate speculation any more than we can.

MA-Sen: With John Kerry's confirmation official, word quickly broke that Scott Brown was moving to put a Senate campaign into gear. There's no definitive word yet, but combined with Bill Weld's recent reticence, a Brown comeback bid is all but assured at this point.

More MA-Sen: Gov. Deval Patrick needs to pick a Senator to serve until June, and the most important criteria for an interim Senator is their qualifications for officehow much they donated to Patrick being "a woman or a person of color." That means we're getting Patrick hack Mo Cowan, or Vicki Kennedy, widow of Ted. Poor Barney Frank!

SC-Sen-A: In a move that should help shore up his right flank, Sen. Lindsey Graham is demanding that SoD Leon Panetta testify about Benghazi--and is threatening to place a hold on the nomination of his designated successor, Chuck Hagel, until Panetta appears.

TN-Sen: This should be the final "Lamar Alexander is running again" story needed: he's attempting to raise $3M by the end of April.

TX-Sen: There's some interest in a primary challenge to the very conservative but very establishment John Cornyn, but the only name Cornyn foes can come up with is AG Greg Abbott, who seems much more interested in a bid for governor.

WV-Sen: EMILY's List announced five fairly random targets, most notably Shelley Moore Capito. This usually means they have a pro-choice female Dem in the wings, so is this a sign Natalie Tennant is lining up to run? (The other four targets are Rodney Davis, Gary Miller, Dan Webster, and Bill Young.)

Keystone: Five of the six red-state Senate Democrats up in 2014 signed a letter urging Obama to build the pipeline. Tim Johnson (retirement?) was the notable absence, especially considering that the pipeline will run though South Dakota. They were joined by a handful of other Dems and all Republicans except Collins.

Governor

AR-Gov: St. Sen. Keith Ingram (D) is considering running against Bill Halter in the primary, which opened up after Dustin McDaniel's sex scandal. Ingram starts with an awkward base: West Memphis, which is well removed from the state's population centers.

PA-Gov: Gov. Tom Corbett (R) is in trouble, with only 31% of voters (and only 49% of Republicans!) saying he deserves re-election. His approvals are a more bearable 36/42. Corbett faces an interesting decision on whether to run again, and a tough rebranding mission (in both the primary and general) if he does.

More PA-Gov: Unknown Wealthy Businessman Tom Wolf (D) has upgraded his pre-campaign from "considering" to "very likely." The Commonwealth waits with baited breath.

RI-Gov: Revenge is a dish best served cold, but 14 years? Ex-Rep. Bob Weygand (D), who lost a Senate bid to Lincoln Chafee in 2000, is thinking about running for governor. Chafee is running for a second term but hasn't decided on his party label; several other Dems are in the mix while GOPer Allen Fung is hoping for a 3-way race, a la Maine.

TX-Gov: Could Rick Perry's time be up after 15 years? His re-elects among Republicans are 41/47, and he leads the much lesser-known Greg Abbott only 41-38 (with those who know Abbott's name breaking heavily for him). Perry has underwater approvals and performs poorly against Democrats.

FL-26: In a district where the GOP retains a very active machine, there's a long list of potential foes for new Rep. Joe Garcia (D): St. Rep. Jose Diaz, RNC strategist Ana Navarro, school board member Carlos Curbelo, Jeb Bush Jr., and the Diaz de la Portilla brothers (not to be confused with the Diaz-Balart brothers). St. Sen. Antiere Flores will not run.

GA-10: St. Sen. Bill Cowsert of Athens is considered the early favorite to replace Paul Broun if the latter does indeed run for Senate. (Eric Johnson, who ran for governor in 2010, could run for GA-01 in the less likely event Jack Kingston tries to move up.)

IL-02: You can tell that liberals are getting nervous about the comparatively moderate Debbie Halvorson winning this one. Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun SuperPAC is hitting the airwaves for the first time in 2013, attacking the NRA A-rated Halvorson.

MO-08: The St. Louis Beacon breaks down a field of Republicans just as crowded as the Dem field in IL-02 or the GOP field in SC-01. The nominee will be selected on February 9. One intriguing candidate is long, long ago ex-Rep. Wendell Bailey, who could be the GOP's Rick Nolan and has promised to serve only until 2014.

VA-10: There certainly is a backlog waiting for Rep. Frank Wolf to retire. Today, it's Artur Davis indicating once again that he wants to run as a Republican in NoVa, either for the State Senate (see shamlet's diary for the district) or for Wolf's seat.

Miscellaneous

Electoral College: Gov. Rick Snyder nipped the movement to split Michigan's EV's by district in the bud. Later in the day, Ohio also killed an EV-splitting bill.

Transportation: Ray LaHood's departure creates another open Cabinet post; the likely pick is LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. It's unlikely Obama will look at any current Members of Congress, but ex-Rep. Steve LaTourette could be considered if he wants another Republican.

The IRS has a lien of $11.1 million against Dr. Melgen for taxes owed from 2006 to 2009. The question was why was Dr. Melgen so generous with Sen Menendez? Why did he shower Menendez with campaign cash, trips on his private jet and pay for the Senator to have sex withunderage prositutes? Was it an attempt to get the Senator Menendez to use his influence to get the IRS to back off? Menendez always had a stench of Hudson County corruption around him. I got a feeling this story could get much worst for him.

The 2003 PROTECT Act makes it a federal crime for US citizens to travel abroad to engage in sex with minors. That is part of what the FBI is investigating.

But as Hillary would say, what difference at this point does it make? After all ABC News had the good Senator on This Week for a whole segment on Sunday and simply forgot to ask him about his proclivity for paying 16 year old girls for sex.

1. Deny the existence of anything.
2. Accept that there may be a story, so you blame the messenger as politically motivated.
3. Pray step 3 doesn't happen, because if the story proves to be true you're Anthony Weiner.

This looks like it could be more serious than we thought. I wonder if he can hang in til 2018 when a Dem could possibly be elected Gov or if he goes to jail or resigns before then. I can't see Dem leaders pushing him out as long as Christie is Gov. If he does need to resign, they'd be smart to get him to do it while Christie is trying to look nonpartisan rather than after the election when Chrisite could score points with the right by appointing a Republican

as they gain intensity. On the other hand some are like Greg Meeks or David Rivera where the member sits under a cloud forever with no real resolution. If there's a strong case to be made it's a real question if Menendez can make it past the late-summer deadline for a 2013 election. If not he could limp to retirement in 2018.

In cases like Anthony Weiner or Elliott Spitzer things come out quickly and the politician is enveloped in it. Weiner and Spitzer could've fought it and there's a chance they could've survived.

In cases like David Rivera and John Ensign the scandal gains steam slowly but the result is inevitable long before the politician recognizes it.

On the other hand, there's a Charlie Rangel, who is guilty, and Michael Grimm, who is shrouded in allegations but nothing too firm. Both survive.

If the story has legs, Menendez won't survive the year. If Menendez were to resign or Lautenberg were to die in office before the 2013 election, there'd be a lot of pressure on Christie to appoint a Democrat. Appointing a Republican could hurt him at the polls this November.

Or even someone like Kean Sr. There are options that wouldn't make him look ultra-partisan but that wouldn't be a Dem. If he did pick a Dem, he'd likely stay away from any moderate who was young enough to stay on.

He's going to beat Buono no matter what. And if he appoints a Democrat that would be the end of any national ambition he might have. I imagine it would be Kean. Maybe Whitman if he really feels pressure to appoint a moderate.

Is dumb. He'd be better appointing an I who would run (and look more bi-partisan and maybe keep the seat out of D hands) than appointing an R like Nick Brady who won't run. The only reason Kean chose Brady in '82 is because he didn't want to get in the middle of Fenwick/Jeff Bell primary. Since there's no clear Conservative vs. Moderate primary brewing in NJ-Sen-2014 (R), a placeholder is silly. I don't see why there'd be a bigger push for a placeholder than they'd be a push for not a Republican.

The January job numbers are going to be the first big indicator about how Q1 is shaping up, and of Q1 is negative we are in a recession. I really doubt that we are in a recession as corporate equipment and software sales rose, as did consumer spending, of seems to me that the Q4 number is likely solely due to a decrease in government/military spending by something like 3.4%. These were 1 time decreases in anticipation of the fiscal cliff, and won't be repeated in Q1.

In the same Quinnipiac poll Cuomo slips dramatically to a tie among Repub voters 44-43; it appears the gun control bill hurt him among upstate Repub voters. At the same time Repub leaders are now less prone to rubber stamp his agenda. Repub leaders Skelos told Conservative Party leaders that he will oppose Cuomo's proposal to expand use of late term abortions. He has also indicated that Cuomo's proposed July 1 $1.50 hike in the minimum wage is too much, too soon, and stated there has to be a compromise on this. At the same time NYC suburban Nassau and Suffolk County Repub State Senators met with local Conservative Party leaders who expressed concern the Repubs were drifting too far too the left; afterwards the Conservative Party leaders indicated they felt they had gotten their message across. Keep in mind though, that if the Repub-IDC coalition breaks up, Dems will have a one vote majority in the State Senate; this limits the Repub ability to maneuver on Cuomo legislative proposals.

What states does that leave after it died in Virginia Ohio and Michigan? Obviously this really only applies to Republican controlled Obama States, as that really is at the crux of this whole ordeal. Florida? Pennsylvania?

The only state where it hasn't been declared dead is PA. I would be surprised if it passed there, since the Republican margins in the legislature are fairly narrow, even if Corbett is open to the idea.

I maintain that in a close election the Electoral College has a built in bias against the Repub nominee; in fact I think Repubs would be better off in a close election with direct popular vote (but a constitutional amendment to do that is highly unlikely to happen).
Suppose Romney had finished 1% ahead of Obama in the popular vote; that would be a swing of 4.8% from the actual results, since Obama had a 3.8% popular vote lead. He would then have been likely to carry the 3 states that Obama won by less than 4.8%: Florida(.9%),Ohio(3%) and Virginia(3.9%). Even with that, he would be short by 4 EVs of a 270 vote Electoral College victory. Since Obama won the next closest states (Colorado and Pennsylvania) by about 5.4%, the 4.8% national swing to Romney would probably have not been sufficient for him to carry either of the two states. However, if Pa. allocates its EVs, then Romney wins an Electoral College victory in this hypothetical situation. I know you can't always assume that the swing to a candidate in a particular state will always follow the national percentage swing, but I think it is a plausible argument. Romney would have had to run about .6 or .7 percentage points ahead of the national swing in Colo and Pa to win either of these states in this scenario. Also keep in mind that Pa. has not gone Repub since 1988; it looks tempting but the Dems always seem to run up huge victory margins in SE Pa and Pittsburgh that allows them to carry the state. Repub Presidential Nominees will only win Pa. when there is a national Repub landslide.

If some big Red states joined them, it could be in place by the next election. TX, FL, AZ, NC, GA, TN & PA would be enough, though some of the swing states might be reluctant to give up their preferential status.

This special election is perfect for him. It neutralizes the rest of the delegation.

The 2010 special neutralized Capuano, Coakley, and Cahill(though it was not apparent quite yet).

This special is likely to neutralize Kerry(who is behind Markey) and two out of the three of Markey, Lynch, and Brown.

If Brown wins he is tied down, Lynch is blamed for a divisive primary, and Markey is gone. And the only man who can save the day is Deval. If Markey wins, Lynch is neutralized and Brown is badly weakened, enough to fall before Carmen Ortiz.

The last thing Patrick wants is to be dragged into a Senate race. If he were thinking about it this would not be the right time to announce a massive tax hike. The most likely thing he wants is 2 years as AG and then a profitable retirement. Ortiz isn't running for Governor, and I seriously doubt Brown would try again rather than cash out after two tough losses.

Karen Handel did her best to finish the show with grace, as she herself left the door open for a potential run to replace Chambliss. However, with an expected announcement from Congressman Tom Price (R-Roswell) regarding his own entrance into the Senatorial race in the coming days, Handel may be taking a much closer look at replacing him amongst Georgia's congressional delegation.

I had a long facebook argument with a (very) liberal aquainance on the relative merit of splitting EVs by CD.

I'm a huge fan of the idea as I believe it would greatly increase the bredth of "Swing" states away from usual suspects.

It's very strange that swing states (PA, VA, MI & OH) that actually have something to lose, for this to really take off it will be states like CA, TX, NY...but are sufficiently partisan in leadership that only a grand partnership would allow such a move to go forward.

At a minimum it must be paired with Iowa-style non-partisan redistricting nationally. Otherwise, my feeling is we already have two branches of government(the House and Senate) which are skewed against urban voters, the former case I think against the founders intentions(some of the skew may well be organic to a district system, but it is not designed to represent the "People" right now).

Statewide elections at least keep the Presidency at a level no worse than the Senate in terms of such discrimination. If you remove the Presidency, all Urban voters would really have a say in is their governors, and in states like North Carolina, its possible for a majority to be entirely disenfranchised indefinitely.

I realize people here are unsympathetic to urban voters because they don't vote Republican, but is incredibly bad in a state that considers itself a democracy to disenfranchise its voters within the system, not least because it de-legitimizes the system itself and makes advocates of such a system appear to be anti-democratic. Which is why I think this thing is being backed off from. It produced an almost universally negative reaction, and quite a loud one, with even figures like Larry Sabato comparing it to election-rigging.

Almost all congressmen have been elected from single-member districts since the very first Congress. An occasional state--GA, NH, NJ, VT--had at-large elections for a while, but this was rare, and by the 1830s was extremely uncommon.

In the 1st Congress, 69% were elected from districts; in the 2nd Congress 80% were elected from districts, & by the mid-1840s all congressmen were from districts. The only exceptions were the occasional case when a newly-admitted state had more than 1 congressmen & no time to do districts, or where political stalemates prevented districts from being drawn.

There is strong evidence the system was designed to favor rural voters over urban voters even at the time of the Founding. Districts were often apportioned based on geographic boundaries and not exclusively on population. The widespread use of property requirements to vote furthered rural interests over urban interests.

In addition, our system was not intended to be a democratic system. Most of the Founding Fathers outright despised democracy and wanted to filter the untamed passions as much as possible.

I'm pretty sure if Democrats put a system in place that effectively required Republicans to win 53% of the two-way popular vote to win the Presidency (and let's not kid ourselves, that's what a CD-based allocation system would do), all these federalist arguments would go out the window fast.

The current system is unusual in that Republicans have a built-in advantage in the House (and technically the Senate, though Democrats are doing just fine there) but Democrats have a (lesser) built-in advantage in the electoral college.

Its one of the problems with FPTP district systems--geographically concentrated support is punished while broader support is rewarded. Though like all voting systems, you have to compare it to the other alternatives, which are generally also flawed in some way.

24, Conservatarian Republican CA-12Liberals dream things that never were and ask why not. Conservatives shout back "Because it won't work"

As I am opposed to a CD based allocation of electoral votes. I am open to the prospect of allocating them on a proportional basis by state though. That would seem to be a very fair method and make races important in solid red or blue states now.

America hs a system in place for changing how we govern ourselves. Its called constitutional amendment.

The EC should either be left alone as it is winner take all by state or a constitutional amendment should to be passed to change our system to a national popular vote with national electoral standards.

Anything else just reeks of gimmikie politics that in the long run would be horrible for America's system of government.

I'm proud to have supported him from when I first read about him around the time he announced.

I hate to link to the Free Press, the inferior of the two Detroit newspapers, but Snyder just ensured that RTW will be reviewed by the 4-2 GOP Supreme Court, blocking other challenges from Democrats. He got to set the parameters as he liked, I guess.

WV-Sen: The funny part about this is that EMILY's List supports pro-choice women, but the only woman in the race is pro-li... oh, wait.

AR-Gov: Ingram could rally the Delta, but he'd still be a huge underdog. Halter, for all his youth and energy, is a progressive. Ingram might actually save the AR Dems if a miracle were to happen. Halter will spell their downfall.

CO-06: Coffman is probably safe until we get presidential turnout again.

MO-08: I hope that one of the non-officeholders is picked. The apple cart need not be upset.

VA-10: Davis sounds good to me. He can have enough crossover appeal to hold the district down even if it continues to drift leftward.

He can have enough crossover appeal to hold the district down even if it continues to drift leftward.

Uhhh, after he's basically spat on the Democratic Party and President Obama every time a microphone's been within 10 feet of his mouth since switching parties, why do you think he'd have any crossover appeal at all? I think he's a bright guy and I think he'd be a fine VA-10 candidate but I don't think he has more crossover appeal than anyone else who could run.

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

He's always been a conservative in terms of foreign policy even when he was a Democrat. Remember the big issue in his 2002 Dem primary was Libya, Israel and the war on terror. He ran as a conservative on those issues even when he was a Dem.

Especially if they do at National Conventions. What pissed off people about say Miller, or Davis is not that they quietly decided to switch, but that they did so in a way that maximized damage to people who were supposedly their friends. People may even agree with them on issues, but don't want to hear it from them.

In the sense that even in race between Crist and Rick Scott, Crist's behavior and what people think of it will be as much the issue as Scott's tenure or actual policy issues. So while Crist might be able to win that in the end, I think being Charlie Crist is probably a net negative for him, since goodwill from his governorship is counteracted by his drama-queen behavior and defection.

That said, I think both Davis and Lieberman suffer a bit from the personal nature of their betrayals. Crist betrayed Mitt Romney. Obama campaigned for Lieberman in 2006 and helped save him. Davis did the nomination speech. Had Davis defected over a President Hillary I think the hostility would be less.

I didn't comment on the 2008 electorate and I didn't say the special election electorate won't be more Warren than the 2012 electorate, only that if it is then Brown loses. We've had two recent Mass Senate polls with very different results. The reason why is that one assumes that many of the people who won't vote in June will be Warren voters, while the other assumes many of them will be Brown voters. If you want to decide which poll will be more reflective of the actual vote, that's important to know.

In almost no instance was the 2012 electorate more Obama than 2008 was. Obviously the bottom line, his margin was half 2008, is true. Massachusetts was D+22 in 2012 and D+26 in 2008.Very few states had exit polls that were more Democratic in 2012 and Obama had a better margin in 2012 in only 6 of 51 states. So any criticism of 2012 that it'd be more Democratic than 2008 was justified because it proved to be accurate.

When measuring polling accuracy people rarely look at any poll that is more than a few weeks from the election. And really, there's no reason to. The poll, while estimating turn-out, is reflective of how people feel at the time. Pollsters frequently change and refine their methodology during the course of the campaign. So, no one is measuring or has measured PPP polls five months from the election.

While PPP has done reasonably well in the past, their success isn't universal. In Massachusetts, for instance, PPP was off by 8 points from the final result, the second most of any pollster. The idea that PPP is very good at what they do comes from the judgement of one evaluator.

I don't take anyone's word for it without doing my own work. Every poll and pollster deserves scrutiny.

Let's assume people who didn't vote in the Brown/Warren election won't vote in 2013 special. That leaves Brown with 48.5 and Markey with 45.5, 6 points of undecideds that broke 80-20 for Warren. If Markey gets the same percentage, he wins 50.2-49.8. That tells me, for Markey to win, he has to do the following:

1. Achieve 2012 turnout
2. Hold his current base of support
3. Win 4 out of 5 undecideds

or

4. Erode Brown's base of support

He definitely has a road to victory, and the race would be a toss up, in my book, but Brown has a road to victory as well.

Yes, there is evidence that sometimes people do answer they voted for the winner, but it's not something that necessarily happens in large amounts in all surveys and how many people do so is unknown. it certainly isn't a huge number and doesn't make the question useless. You ask the question because you want to know how Brown and Warren voters are voting. If the question asked produced useless information, there'd be no point in asking it.

"You ask the question because you want to know how Brown and Warren voters are voting."

Exactly. You don't however ask the question to find out how many Brown and Warren voters are in your sample. Even with 5% of the respondents lying about this, your numbers on how Warren and Brown voters voted will be pretty accurate-- but it won't tell you anything useful about your sample composition.

That's certainly not a name I expected to hear again. There are a couple of problems I could see with him winning the nomination. He was something of a moderate when he ran for governor in 1992-he was the pro-choice candidate in the Republican primary against the pro-life Roy Blunt and William Webster(Bailey finished in a distant 3rd with 15% of the vote). Also, he is from the less-populated western side of the district. Not sure what makes him a better candidate too just because he wouldn't run in 2014.

Apparently, he sold his house a few weeks ago. It was tiny, so maybe he's just moving up or maybe he's moving to DC to take some job? Who knows. Hopefully he's just moving up and will consider running again in 2014. He's a New Trier Township guy through and through, though, as his dad, Robert Dold Sr, went to New Trier High School as well and I believe was there around the time Donald Rumsfeld was.

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

Democrats expressed disappointment but understanding Wednesday with Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer's decision not to challenge Governor Rick Snyder in 2014 and began turning their focus to the other most serious possible candidates.

The two seen as the most interested in running are former U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer of Battle Creek and State Board of Education President John Austin of Ann Arbor. U.S. Rep. Gary Peters (D-Bloomfield Township) has not taken his name out of the mix, but few Democrats think he would take a shot at the governorship when he is positioned to hold his U.S. House seat for many years to come.

Reason-Rupe finds that over half, 51 percent, of Americans say people "should be allowed to own assault weapons," while 44 percent say people "should be prohibited from owning assault weapons."

Democrats, who normally count on the youth vote, may be surprised to find that 70 percent of 18-24 year-olds and 58 percent of 25-34 year-olds say "assault weapons should be allowed." Similarly, Republicans, who usually rely upon the senior vote, will find that 57 percent of 55-64 year-olds and 61 percent of people over the age of 65 say assault weapons should be prohibited.

Huh. I'm in a class on peace building in Central America right now and, in particular, we're studying the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador and the aftermath and subsequent peace building process in each country. It's interesting to see Montt come up on RRH; I had no idea he's Weller's father-in-law.

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

Louisiana and Georgia seem to have a disproportionate number of doctors in Congress compared to other states. LA has Boustany, Fleming, and Cassidy, half of its delegation. Georgia has Price, Broun, and Gingrey.

Alabama has Robert Bentley. Tennessee has Phil Roe and also Scott DesJarlais (who may be neither a licensed physician nor a Congressman two years from now). Until recently there was Ron Paul in Texas and Dave Weldon in Florida as well.

With the notable exception of the airlines, and the aerospace industry in general, unions tend to represent the lower tier of employees. Miners not supervisors. steel workers, not managers. Weavers not owners. Etc. A lot of nurses are unionized in large hospitals, but that is the lower tier if workers, with the upper tier being doctors.